Skip to main content
Main

Pepper Pot

A hearty stew of mutton, salt pork, tripe, and mixed vegetables simmered in water with herbs and thickened with flour, butter, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, add 3 quarts of water and 1 pint of mixed vegetables.

  2. Add 1 pound of mutton, 1 pound of salt pork, and 1 pound of honeycomb tripe, all cut up.

  3. Fry the tripe in butter or suet before adding it to the pot.

  4. Add 1 bay leaf, 1 clove, parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover and cook for 3 hours.

  2. Once cooked, set aside to cool and remove the fat.

  3. Thicken the broth with flour, butter, and the yolk of an egg.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and serve very hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides rich meaty flavor and body to the broth during long simmering.
Honeycomb tripe
Adds chewy texture and savory depth to the soup.
Mixed vegetables
Contribute sweetness, body and earthy flavor to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth by gelatinizing with heat to give it body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and further thickens the broth, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Thickening the broth with egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens through heat-set proteins, so it can curdle or scramble if the broth boils after it is added. Keep the heat low and stir steadily while it sets.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, celery, carrot, onion, rice, lettuce, potato):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, celery, carrot, onion, rice, lettuce, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes